Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch

The cool water soaks my short coat,

The clear strip of river is bluer than indigo.

The willows outdo the five at Tao Ch’ien’s gate,

The mountains the three at the Yu-chiang sea.5

Sky and water blend till I don’t know which way up I am;

Then the clouds lift and I can tell east from west again.

I tie the boat for a while near a flat hump of sand,

And a monk comes out of his little hermitage.

As dawn lit the sky I floated off from Yongp’o;

Now in gathering dusk I moor here at Kyont’an.

Dark clouds obscure the setting sun,

Wild rocks hinder the crazy waves.

The water grows cold in autumn,

The boat pavilion is chillier at night.

The landscape is a magnificent picture―

One might think it a painted screen.

These were verses written carelessly on the spur of the moment, and I doubt if they are up to standard.6

XXIII

Next morning I loosed the boat and let it drift, following the river down to the east.1 When evening came I moored in front of Wonhung Monastery, and spent the night in the boat. It was quiet and everyone else was asleep. The only noise to be heard was the plopping of fish in the water. I pillowed my head on my arm and dozed for a little, but the night was too cold for me to sleep long. I could hear some fishermen singing and the pipes of a group of merchants in the distance. The sky was cloudless, the water glassy, the sand and rocks gleamed white, the moonlight played with the shadows on the ripples that rocked the covered boat. Before us weird rocks loomed like crouching bears and tigers. I lazed there with my headband loosened, relishing the pleasures of the riverscape.2 How much better it was than spending every day in luxurious ease among painted women singing to flutes and strings. [page 25]

I wrote two poems:

Blue heaven rides the distant water;

That cloudy islet must be fairy land.

Rosy scales dive beneath the ripples,

White birds wing through the mist.

The stream changes its name as it goes,

The mountains vary as the boat turns.

I sent for wine from the village on the bank

And sipped a cup pensively.

I moor at night by a sandy bank near greenish rocks,

I sit and sing under the awning, stroking my wispy beard.

The glistening water gently rocks the boat,

Pale moonlight drips from the brim of my hat;

Rushing green torrents drown a lone rock for a moment;

When the white clouds part a low peak appears.

I cannot bear the screech of pipes;

I need jade-soft fingers strumming the lute.

(I had ordered a secretary to play on a pipe.)

XXIV

I received a royal edict putting me in charge of timber felling at Pyonsan. Because of this appointment I was nicknamed ‘the wood-chopper’. As I rode off to do the job I composed a humorous verse on the way:

What glory to command the coolie hosts!

What a shame to be the chief wood-chopper!

because the work was essentially a matter of portering and wood-cutting.

It was my first visit to Pyonsan. The piled-up peaks and crowding moun- tain-tops, rising, falling, twisting, and jumbled, come right down to the sea. There are mountainous islands out in the ocean, like Hedgehog Island, which can be reached at morning and evening. The seafolk say that with a fair wind one can sail to China and it is not far.

I went once to Chusa-p’o. The moon rose bright above the ridge and lit up the sandy beach. My mind seemed to be washed clean. I loosened the [page 26]

bridle and stopped spurring my horse while I gazed out at the sea for a long time, musing. The horseboy thought it very odd. I composed a poem.

Three times this spring have I passed this estuary,

But still I have not finished my service for the king.

Huge waves pound in from far, like snowy chargers;

Centuries-old woods surround me like coiled green dragons;

The sea wind soughs and whines with wild flute notes,

The rising moon over the beach greets the returning boats.

The lad that leads my horse thinks it odd

That coming to such places I always stop and stare.

I had not intended at first to make a poem. It came upon me without any effort at all.

XXV

As a result of prolonged consideration of the subject I have concluded that there are nine faults in poetry.

1. Quoting too many names of historical personages: the cartload of ghosts.

2. Stealing other writers’ ideas, which is bad even when done well: inept thieving for easy effect.

3. Unnecessary choice of difficult rhyme: the bow too stiff to bend.

4. Attempting a rhyme beyond one’s ability: drinking too much wine.

5. Liking obscure characters that puzzle the reader: digging ditches for the blind.

6.Straining to use intractable words: forcing men to follow.

7. Using too many colloquialisms: yokels’ parliament.

8. Liking to oppose Confucius and Mencius: lese-majeste.

9. Not pruning exuberant phrases: the field full of weeds.

When one can avoid all these faults, one may start speaking of poetry.

XXVI

The most important thing about a poem is its meaning, the creation of which is the most difficult part of composition. The arrangement of the words is a lesser matter. The principal part of meaning is wit, and the merit―the depth [page 27] or shallowness—of a poem depends on wit. This wit, or inspiration, comes from an innate gift and cannot be acquired by study. Poets of inferior inspiration may strive hard at their technique, but they will never achieve this first prerequisite of adequate meaning. They polish their verses and point their phrases to real elegance, but there is no substance or depth in them: although they give a good first impression, they will not bear prolonged rumination.

If one is writing a poem to rhymes chosen in advance and the rhymes hamper the sense, then they should be changed; though, of course, when writing a poem to correspond with the rhymes of a poem written by someone else, one is bound to adapt the meaning to the rhymes.1 Likewise, if one has great difficulty in finding a parallel verse, even after long mulling over it, it is best to cut one’s losses and give up the attempt.2

If the idea for a poem is badly conceived, the sense is likely to become involved. It will get twisted and go wrong, and finally will not convey what was at first intended. Only when the thought is free and natural3 will a perfect poem result.4

There are times when a fault in the first verse of a distich can be retrieved by means of the second verse. And it is also worth remembering that on occasion a single character will settle the quality of a whole verse.

XXVII

A style that is utterly plain and frugal is fit for a mountain peasant; a style that is all decoration and artifice belongs to the palace. Only when you can mingle the plain, the noble, the decorative and the ordinary will you produce an individual style that cannot be pigeon-holed.

XXVIII

When anyone points out the faults in your verse, you should be pleased. If what he says is right, follow his advice; otherwise stick to your position. There is no point in not admitting your faults, like some king who refuses to listen to the unpalatable criticisms made by his censors. When you have finished a poem, look it over again, not as though it were your own composition, but as though it had been written by someone else, or by somebody you have always envied and whose faults you would be delighted to pick out. Then if you can find nothing wrong, you can publish the poem.1 [page 28]

XXIX

One must read a great deal of a classic master’s verse before one can hope to emulate his qualities. Otherwise even mere imitation is difficult. The process is like burglary: a thief must first spy out a rich man’s house and acquaint himself thoroughly with all the walls and doors before he can enter the place and appropriate the rich man’s belongings without their owner knowing what has happened. If he simply goes round the house peering into boxes like someone searching for eggs in nesting-baskets, he is sure to be caught.1

When I was young I was a gadabout, far from industrious, and not at all devoted to my reading. I read the usual Chinese classics and histories extensively, but never really plumbed their meanings. Much less did I study the poets at all deeply. Not being immersed in the texts, how could I borrow their language or imitate their style? Thus I have been compelled to create a new style.

XXX

There is a poetry anecdote that mentions this distich in Li Shan-fu’s poem ‘On reading the Han shu’:

When Wang Mang came it was already half submerged;

When Ts’ao Ts’ao went it sank to the bottom.1

I think this well turned, but a certain Ko Yongsu carped about it and said, ‘It must be a poem about a shipwreck.’

I believe that in poetry any matter can be dealt with either literally or metaphorically. Li Shan-fu was comparing the Han dynasty to a boat, meta-phorically speaking of it half sinking and then sinking to the bottom. If he could have answered Ko Yongsu and said, ‘You call it a poem about shipwreck, and I was indeed comparing the Han dynasty to a ship. I am so glad you got the point!’ what could Ko have said in return?

The anecdote makes it clear that Ko Yongsu was an irresponsible and frivolous critic. His remarks may safely be ignored.2 [page 29]

XXXI

The old saying has it that eight or nine things out of ten go contrary to one’s wishes. So how much can a man hope to have to his liking during his life in this world ? I have written a poem of twelve verses on the subject.

The smallest things in life go wrong,

The slightest action runs into frustration.

When I was young and poor, my wife was unhappy;

When we grew richer the dancing-girls pursued me.

It usually rains if I have to go out,

But is fine when I can stay at home.

When I have no appetite, the food is tasty;

If my throat is too sore to drink, there is wine in plenty.

I sell some treasure cheap, then find the market price is high;

Just as I get better from long illness, a doctor shows up next door.

If all my petty affairs turn out like this,

What chance have I of riding the crane of Yang-chou?

So it is: everything goes awry. On a small scale this is true of personal joys and trials, on a large scale of national prosperity and crises: nothing goes according to plan. My doggerel describes trivialities, but the same point applies to major matters.

XXXII

A familiar quatrain about the four joys says:

When glad rain comes in time of drought,

When an old friend is met away from home.

In the bedroom on the wedding-night,

When one’s name is high on the pass-list.

But though it rains after drought, there will be another drought later on; though one meets an old friend away from home, one has to bid him farewell again; how can the bridegroom and bride be sure they will not be parted? How can one know that passing the state examination is not the beginning of [page 30] troubles? These things are more able to spoil our joy than to increase it. They ought to be considered as sorrows.

NOTES

I

1. Ch’i Tzu in Korean is Ki-ja, the viscount of Ch’i, supposed to have brought literary culture to Korea in 1122 BC.

2. This book is not otherwise known (though the same reference is given in Chibong yusol 13), but the story of Ulchi Mundok’s poem is in Samguk sagi 44 and Tongmun son 19. It relates to the defeat of the Sui army by Koguryo in AD 612. The description of the poem given here is technically precise, and avoids calling it chueh-chu.

II

Queen Chindok reigned 647-654. The story of the dispatch of a poem as a piece of diplomatic flattery to the newly enthroned T’ang emperor in 650 is recorded in Samguk sagi 5, with the text of the poem. The text is also in Chuan T’ang shin 11.10.3.

III

1. Ch’oe Chiwon lived AD 859-c 910

2. This collection has not survived.

3. The verse is otherwise unknown.

4. The whole text of the ultimatum is in Tongmun son49.

See also the following section.

IV

This passage is in TYSC 22.7a7-8a5.

1. i.e. Hsin T’ang shu

2. A form of elaborately balanced prose in phrases of four and six characters, in vogue in China from the fifth century until the reaction against it by Han Yu late in the eighth century. It continued in use, however, till Sung times, and was revived under the Ch’ing. Also referred to as ‘parallel prose’(p’ien-wen), it tended naturally towards the artificial and mannered.

3. TYSC says ‘twenty’, which is correct. Paegun sosol has doubtlessly been wrongly copied.

4. Here TYSC inserts: ‘and notes that he was a Korean who qualified in the state examination and was appointed to serve in Kao P’ien’s expedition to Huai-nan. After reading this...’

5. TYSC has (instead of ‘one distich’) ‘says in effect’: but the whole poem, including [page 31] this distich, is preserved at the end of Ch’oe Ch’iwon’s biography in Samguk sagi 46.

6. The passage ‘He wrote of himself to Korea at twenty-eight’, does not occur in the TYSC text. The quotation is written in ‘six-four’ prose.

7. Four T’ang poets. Apart from Shen Ch’uan-ch’i, they are minor figures.

8. Otherwise Yi Hoeok, a north Korean born in AD 760.

9. A Paekche general who, after the collapse of Paekche before the armies of Silla and T’ang in 660, gave his allegiance to China, where he had a distinguished career in the field.

10. Here TYSC inserts: ‘which would have aroused the jealousy of the Chinese’.

V

1. The word used is Sam-han, i.e. the three confederations of Han tribes, the earliest political organization of Korea known to traditional historiography.

2. This verse of Ch’oe Ch’iwon is not otherwise attested.

3. The whole poem is in Tongmun son 12.

4. Also in Tongmun son 12.

5. Likewise in Tongmun son 12. The same three passages are quoted at the beginning of Tongin sihwa, a later collection of Korean sihwa.

VI

This story may be compared with Yi Sugwang’s critique of the same poem in Chibong yusol 13.3a, where the same opinion is expressed, and doubt is cast on the authenticity of the poem.

VII

The contrast between the poetry of Kim Pusik (1075-1151) and that of Chong Chisang (died 1135) is a commonplace of traditional Korean criticism. (Tongin sihwa begins with the phrases of this section.) Kim Pusik, a staunch Confucian, but a military man of Songdo culture, wrote in the then popular style modelled on the work of Sung poets such as Ou-yang Hsin and Su Tung-p’o ; Chong Chisang, with Taoist leanings and sympathies for the Pyongyang area, wrote in the more elegant style of late T’ang. Because Kim Pusik was sent to crush a rebellion at Pyongyang, in the course of which he ordered Chong Chisang’s execution, the contrast has been enhanced by history. This sosol illustrates the sympathy later felt for Chong Chisang, and even the details in the emending of Kim Pusik’s distich illustrate the difference between the two styles.

A story of verse-stealing and murder in T’ang is told by Yi Sugwang in Chibong yusol 14 (Sihwa: 14.27a).

VIII

This passage is in TYSC 21.15a9-b7. O Tokchon befriended Yi Kyubo in spite of thirty years’ difference between their ages. He was never successful in obtaining a public appointment, so withdrew to Kyongju, where he died. Yi Kyubo addressed many poems to him, including a virtuoso piece of 300 distichs on the same rhyme. O Tokchon also figures in the next section.

1. The ho Pogyang and cha Sejae are not given in TYSC. [page 32]

2. The north mountain or ‘guardian mountain’ of Songdo, the Koryo capital. It is frequently mentioned in Yi Kyubo’s poems.

3. Or else it means simply that the man proposed a difficult rhyme. The rhymes used do not include the character hom, and though they rhyme with it approximately, they do not match it exactly in the traditional table of 106 rhymes.

4. Wang Tzu-chin or Wang Ch’iao. A sixth-century prince of Chin who became a Taoist adept and is said to have left the world riding to heaven on a white crane.

5. Wu Hsien: a diviner of legendary antiquity. Cf Shu ching, 5.16.7 and elsewhere.

6. TYSC ‘To defeat Ch’u and destroy all other countries’. A reference to the wars establishing the Han dynasty in China.

7. i.e. the Chin or Khitan emperor.

IX

TYSC 21.6a6-b6.

1. O Sejae, Im Ch’un, Cho T’ong, Hwangbo Hang, Ham Sun, Yi Tamji, and Yi Inno.

2. TYSC adds ‘and they became somewhat discouraged.’

3. Two of the Seven Sages of Chin.

4. Wang Jung, one of the Seven Sages of Chin, was so mean that when he ate plums from his favourite tree he always cracked the stones lest someone else should try to plant them.

X

TYSC hujip 4.21bl0-22b6 and 23a2-3. This passage has half a dozen casual differences of text from TYSC; with the additional significant difference that the last sentence as given here consists in TYSC of some 70 characters that express Yi Kyubo’s half-admitted hope that Ou- yang would bring the whole poem back from China in the following years. Yi Kyubo says that he presented Ou-yang with two poems to act as a reminder. The poem given in Paegun sosol is the first of a pair, with the final hemistich much altered. The two poems were written, as a tour-de-force, on rhymes which Yi Kyubo had already used twice in verses for Ou-yang Po-hou (TYSC hujip 3.3b9 and 4.15b6.)

The incident is referred to again by Yi Kyubo’s son Ham in his preface to TYSC hujip. If the order of the poems in the hujip is chronologically correct, Ou-yang’s visit must have been in the 3rd or 4th moon of 1238, about three years before Yi Kyubo’s death.

XI

This passage presents the most intriguing editorial problem in Paegun sosol. It begins with a description, in formal prose, of the writer’s early reading habits, taken from the middle of a letter addressed to the high minister of state Cho Yongin in 1197, bagging for help in gaining an official appointment. (TYSC 26.18a9—19a5 Sang Cho taeui so.) This ends in the translation at ‘turned my hair grey’. The story that follows is not in TYSC, except for the quotation at the end, which is TYSC 2.6al0, where the title reads ‘in response to Yun the lecturer, on a spring day when I fell asleep under the influence of wine’. The poem is praised by Ch’oe Cha Pohan chip (Chosen Kankokai edition p 105), written a generation after Yi Kyubo.

1. Kao Yao: the great minister of the legendary emperor Shun, mentioned in Shu ching. [page 33]

2. K’uei: another minister of Shun’s. He was put in charge of music.

3. Pan Ku: historiographer of the Han dynasty. Died AD 92.

4. Ssuma Ch’ien: author of Shih chi, died c 85 BC.

XII

TYSC hujip 2.4. Only three or four characters differ between the two texts. The prose is the preface to Yi Kyubo’s imitation of Po Chu-i’s ‘Fifteen poems written in illness’; the poem is the last of the fifteen. The final note, saying that the poem is incomplete, does not appear in TYSC, for the very good reason that the editor of Paegun sosol was mistaken in believing anything had been lost, Po Chu-i’s original poem had only six verses.

Po Chu-i (772-846) was a favourite of Yi Kyubo, who discerned a like spirit, and imitated the T’ang poet’s pen-names, as well as his verses. Hence the delight at the discovery of their similar experiences in illness.

XIII

TYSC 20.18. To all intents and purposes the two texts are the same, save for the insertion here of the poem written while Kyubo was drunk. (TYSC does, however, contain the preceding sentence about versifying when drunk. The poem is not in TYSC at all.) This was written about 1192, when Yi Kyubo was twenty-three.

1. TYSC 20.12

2. The great Chinese poet of rustic life (c365-427) who remained a paramount influence in Korean literature.

XIV

TYSC hujip 11.12. Two brief passages are omitted in Paegun sosol.

1. A Sung collection of poetry criticism by Ts’ai Hsiu.

2. TYSC inserts at the beginning of the next sentence: ‘Although this criticism was trifling...’

3. TYSC here inserts: ‘but in fact he was one of the great scholars of his day, and to suggest that he did not know this reference was most insulting.’

XV

TYSC 21.5.

1. Mei Yao-ch’en, Sung poet (1002-1060).

2. Ssu Ling-yun (385-433.)

3. A poet of mid-T’ang.

4. The great Sung poet (1036-1101).

XVI

TYSC hujip 3.7b, A sentence is omitted in Paegun sosol. It comes immediately before the poems and explains that the first is addressed to Tsu-po, the second to Ou-yang Po-hu. [page 34]

1. This translates the Sanskrit Sasa-visana or Sasa-srnga, and means that all phenomena are as unreal as rabbit’s horns.

2. The monk’s staff had jangling rings attached to its top.

3. A metaphor for expounding dharma.

4. ‘The old drunkard’, Tsui-weng, was a pen-name for Ou-yang Hsiu.

Both TYSC and Paegun sosol here insert a note to the effect that Po-hu was an eleventh generation descendant of Ou-yang Hsiu. (This is borne out by the occasional addition of 29 to the former’s name and 9 to the latter’s. They may have been collaterally related.)

XVII

TYSC 37.5 is basically the same text, but is considerably longer. It has a longer prose account of Hyemun, and concludes with a dirge of twenty four-character verses. The poem given here in Paegun sosol is quoted in TYSC by the second distich only, as it is also in Pohan chip. The following version of the TYSC text shows in brackets those parts which are not in Paegun sosol. It is clear that Yi Kyubo could not have written the TYSC text before 1235, when he was sixty-six years old.

(My friend in the faith, the Great) dhanya-master Hyemun, (whose name was Pinbin and surname in the world was Nam,) was a man of Koyang prefecture. He came to the capital and shaved his head in the Ch’an sect at Kaji-san and became a distinguished monk. He was over thirty when he was at last accepted as a monk, but after proceeding through the various grades of monkhood in order he finally became a head dhyana-master. (Then in 1232 he went away to live at Hwaak-sa. He had been living in the capital, teaching the law at Poje-sa, but that year, because of the Mongol inroads, the court moved and the monastery was commandeered by the invaders. He was perplexed as to where to go. Eventually, he went for three years to a monk who had been a novice with him and now) lived at Unmun Monastery. (In 1234 he fell ill and died.) He was a man of noble character. At one time many famous men of the period used to visit him. He enjoyed writing verses which he did in the style of a mountain recluse. He wrote one about Pohyon Monastery, of which this is an extract:

The road outside the gate is long,

where men go north and south;

The pines beside the rocks are ancient,

where the moon shines now as of old.

(Many people used to recite it) and Hyemun was called ‘the pine-tree moon monk’. (I knew him as a friend from the time I was a young man, and I was so affected by the news of his death that I wrote the following elegy:)

Pohyon Monastery is in North Pyongan on Myohyang-san near Yonghyon. The empty room where brightness is born is a symbol from Chuang-tzu 4 Jen chien shih. The dewdrop in the heart of the plantain or banana plant suggests the clogging power of transitory things.

XVIII

TYSC hujip 1.10. The text in TYSC begins with a date: The third moon of 1215’, (Yi Kyubo was then forty-six). At the end the poem is printed complete―i.e. with Yi Kyubo’s second attempt at the first distich repeated before his closing distich. Otherwise there are a few [page 35]